Category Archives: Policy & Politics

I am wary of playing too much into the Silicon Valley myth, and nothing can be more central to that myth than the garage start-up. Nonetheless, the idea of a “university start-up” seems almost unfathomable, outside the less-than-interesting world of for-profit universities. I may want to buy a Tesla (automobile start-ups probably pre-date the Silicon […]

There lived on Actinuria a young inventor by the name of Pyron, who learned to pull wires out of platinum so thin, you could make nets with them for catching clouds. Pyron invented the wire telegraph, and then he pulled the wire out so fine, it wasn’t there, and in this fashion he obtained the […]

There is a TV show called (in the US) Junkyard Wars. The premise of the show is simple enough: two teams meet in a junkyard and are assigned to build something: a trebuchet, a crane, or some other device. I think we can assume that the collection of stuff is, let us say, “semi-random.” I […]

There have been any number of criticisms of the Citizens United case and the Super PACs that have emerged as a result: they allow corporations and the rich to shape public debate and they provide no accountability, allowing for influence peddling and potential foreign influence. But I wonder if anyone has looked closely at their […]